Excellent atmospheric beer house with no pretensions but some excellent ales. Sadly it closed on 29 April 2018 following a change in ownership of the building, which apparently is going to be mainly converted to accommodation. A licensed premise of some sort may reopen on the ground floor in due course.

This pub was featured many years ago in a local precursor of what became Camra's inventory of nationally important pub interiors, but by the time I came to check it out it had been converted to a late night drinking den. Remnants of the latter are easier to spot in this new incarnation than the older features for which it was once celebrated - the corridor from the front door has been preserved to a certain extent, but multiple applications of wallpaper and paint mean the imagination is overstretched when attempting to appreciate what was once here.
The bar, strangely, is in the back room and had five hand pumps at the time of my visit, with three ales and a cider. The ales featured three beer types that I normally avoid for one reason or another: oyster stout because I'm a vegetarian, and pale beers flavoured with New World hops because I know from experience that I don't like them. (I went for the mosaic rather than the chinook, just on the basis that is was lower abv.) Anyway, the long and the short of it is, I can't find the same enthusiasm for this pub that the previous reviewer had. A combination of the disappointment in the way the old pub interior has been mucked about and the beer offering being too modern and trendy resulted in an underwhelming experience.
Date of visit: 21st October 2017

I've been hearing some good reports about this pub in its new guise so I had a flying visit while otherwise occupied in York. The front bar was fairly desolate with no beers showing and just a couple of odd punters. Through the back things have certainly looked up since my last visit. There are now six hand pumps plus five keg taps and suitably hipster looking staff. Quality was spot on although my beer was decidedly "murky" (it was meant to be and was badged as unfined). Still a little spartan but a vast improvement on before.

Two-bar alehouse, with a compact bar at the front (with numerous casks set up on stillage racks for a beer festival) and a slightly larger one behind. Also features a further room at the back (which was also not in use when I visited) and a rear patio beer garden. Rather gloomy inside - with mostly bare wall, limited decor and basic furniture - but more than made up by a good early evening atmosphere and engaging bar staff. At least 12 real ales from Yorkshire and the North West on offer from handpump and on gravity, with my pint of 4.7% Richmond Stump Cross Ale (£3.00) being at the more sensible end of the spectrum, and two imperial stouts - the 8.0% Bad Co. Crazy Ivan and knockout 10.1% Cloudwater (which they kindly gave me a sample of) at the other. Exceleent.